Sleep-Talking
by VeryBerry96
Summary: After the Vytal Festival fight between JNPR and BRNZ, Nora is exhausted after using her semblance and so Ren takes her to get some food and some sleep. But what Nora mumbles while she's sleeping will come as a huge surprise to Ren, and may change their friendship forever. A NoraRen one-shot for my friend's birthday.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Happy birthday Amiee! I hope you enjoy this! Also this is why I asked you to pick a number earlier :-P**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own RWBY cause if I did then Ren and Nora would be so canon it could sink the Black Pearl. And if you don't know what that means then I weep for you.**

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 **Sleep Talking**

Nora took some deep breaths before beaming round at the rest of JNPR. They'd just kicked team BRNZ's butts in the Vytal Festival and Nora was very happy that she had been a very large part of the reason they'd won. Of course she wouldn't actually say it out loud because she didn't want to seem like she was boasting, but she knew this feeling would keep her smiling all day. However even with that Nora felt slightly exhausted. Using her semblance really tired her out and although she was grinning all she wanted to do was eat and then sleep.

"That was brilliant guys!" Jaune gushed, high-fiving all of them in turn. "Even with all the arguing about attack names…"

"Hey, that was entirely your fault," Pyrrha grinned. "It's not our fault that we had no idea what you were talking about."

"Yeah yeah, I know," Jaune smiled sheepishly.

"Admit it, you heard about Ruby and the girls doing it and wanted to try it for yourself," Ren said knowingly.

Jaune shrugged. "Hey, it seemed really cool when Ruby told me about it so I wanted to try it. What's the matter with that?"

Ren and Pyrrha laughed before Pyrrha realised Nora had been strangely quiet. "Nora, are you okay?" she asked.

Nora nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine! Just a bit hungry and tired."

"How the heck can you be hungry after all the noodles we ate before the match?" Jaune asked.

Nora opened her mouth to answer but someone else beat her to it.

"Cause using her semblance takes a lot of energy. She'll have used up every scrap of energy the noodles gave her by channelling all that electricity."

Nora smiled up at Ren, grateful she had him so she didn't have to explain.

"Well do you want to go get something to eat?" Pyrrha asked, looking concerned.

"I'll take her to get something," Ren replied. "You two should head back in. SSSN and NDGO's match is about to start; it'd look rude if at least some of us weren't there to watch."

"Ren's right," Nora agreed. "You guys go watch, we'll be fine!"

Jaune and Pyrrha both nodded in agreement, knowing that Ren would always look after Nora, and they walked back into the arena while Ren and Nora headed to the food stalls.

Normally Nora would chatter on while Ren listened quite happily but Ren knew from experience that Nora wouldn't want to talk until she'd gotten some food in her, preferably something with a lot of sugar in it, so he gently steered her in the direction of a crêpe stall and ordered a large crêpe with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and strawberries. Nora smiled gratefully, the last bit of her strength starting to trickle away as she began to feel incredibly sleepy. Luckily when the delicious treat was plopped down in front of her by a very sympathetic looking woman who ran the stall Nora found strength enough to scoff the crêpe down in about five seconds flat.

"Thanks for remembering my favourite," Nora grinned at Ren as she finished before letting out a very loud burp.

Ren smiled back before grabbing a napkin from the counter. "You got chocolate sauce everywhere," he murmured before leaning forward to wipe the brown goo from her face. Nora smiled gently at him as he did before she let out a huge yawn.

"Ren, I'm so sleepy…" she complained like a little child.

Ren resisted the urge to comment on how adorable she looked when she did that and just pulled out money to pay for the crêpe. "Come on sleepy-head, don't fall asleep here," he said calmly as always, carefully pulling Nora to her feet and wrapping an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

Looking around Ren realised he wouldn't be able to get Nora back to their room quickly enough; she was so close to falling asleep. So instead he decided to take her somewhere else quiet; the park in the ground of Beacon. Since everyone was either at the arena or at the stalls the rest of the grounds were fairly deserted. Having made up his mind Ren bent down and picked Nora up bridal-style.

"Ren!" Nora squeaked, not having expected him to do that. "What're you doing?!"

"You're going to fall asleep if you keep trying to walk and you'll end up hurting yourself," Ren replied matter-of-factly. "Just relax and hold on to me, okay?"

Nora normally would have protested but she really was tired so she just nodded and wrapped her arms around Ren's neck, hiding her face in his shoulder.

As Ren carried Nora to the quietest part of the grounds he realised that her breathing had deepened and she'd completely relaxed. He couldn't help but chuckle; she'd complete fallen asleep in his arms just like a little child.

Ren found a quiet spot in the cover of some trees so they were out of the sun and set Nora down before sitting down next to her himself. Nora woke up momentarily woke up and mumbled something Ren couldn't hear before she rested her head on Ren's shoulder again and fell immediately back asleep. Ren chuckled again and let his head rest on top of Nora's.

Nobody else walked past them so the two members of JNPR were all alone, but the noise from the arena and the stalls was so loud that Ren could hear faint cheering and music from their spot under the trees. Ren closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the moment of peace, knowing that pretty soon both he and Nora would be thrust into the tournament again and they wouldn't get a minute to themselves until they were out. Not that any of them had any intention of being out of the tournament any time soon; Ren was quietly confident in their team and he knew Jaune, Pyrrha and Nora weren't planning to go down without a fight. Neither was he of course. A lot of people thought that because Ren was quiet that he didn't care about things like this, but of course that wasn't true; any of his friends would vouch for that.

"Mmm…"

Ren opened his eyes and glanced down at his best friend. Nora was starting to mumble in her sleep. Ren smiled; she did this quite a lot. Nora was a very heavy sleeper and Ren had known her to yell full speeches in her sleep and never properly wake up. However she was especially cute when she was just mumbling, or that's what he thought anyway.

"Noraaaa," Ren whispered, trying to coax her awake.

"Mmm?" Nora mumbled, still fast asleep.

"Are you okay?" Ren asked.

Nora was silent for a few moments before she began to mumble again. "Don't ever leave me Ren…okay?"

Ren chuckled again. "I never will Nora, I promise."

Nora snuggled into Ren's shoulder and gently clung onto his coat. "Ren?"

"Mmm hmm?" Ren replied.

"I love you."

Ren's eyes shot down to Nora, his heart speeding up. "Nora…"

Nora didn't say anything else as she began to snore slightly. She had been talking in her sleep again…

Ren let his head fall back so it was resting against the tree. Had Nora meant that? She had been asleep, but in the past Nora had always told the truth when she'd talked in her sleep. Once she'd admitted to copying off of Ren in a class test while she'd been asleep and Pyrrha had badgered her about it until she had confessed to the teacher that she had cheated. Nora would never had said she had cheated when she was awake, and it didn't seem like she could lie when she was sleep-talking.

Ren closed his eyes and tried to calm down. Nora…loved him? Ren had always known he'd loved Nora ever since he'd met her but he never thought that she felt the same way. He'd always thought she saw him more as a best friend or a brother, but never anything more than that. What was he going to do now? Should he tell her what she'd said or should he just forget about it?

The problem was…Ren didn't want to forget about it. At prom he had desperately wanted to tell Nora how he felt but he didn't know how. He wasn't exactly known as a man of many words and he didn't know how to properly express most feelings, let alone how he felt about Nora.

"…Ren?"

Ren's magenta eyes met with Nora's turquoise ones.

"Your heart was going super-fast," Nora whispered worriedly. "Are you okay?"

"Did it wake you up?" Ren asked softly, to which Nora nodded. Ren swallowed heavily before opening his mouth again. "Nora…do you remember how you talk in your sleep sometimes? And you sometimes say things you wouldn't have admitted to when you were awake?"

Nora blushed slightly and looked down. "…What did I say this time?" she asked as if she was embarrassed to hear the answer.

Slowly Ren brought his hand under Nora's chin and tilted her head back up. "From your reaction I think you have a pretty good idea of what you said," he murmured. Nora's blushed flared up even more and Ren knew he'd hit the nail on the head, but Nora didn't look away this time. Instead a steely determination appeared in her eyes as she quickly leant forward and captured Ren's lips with her own. Ren was frozen in shock for a moment before he cupped Nora's cheek and kissed her back.

After a few moments Nora leant back and stared into Ren's eyes again. "I meant it Ren," she said. "I do feel…you know… _that way_ about you. I just didn't know how to say it…"

Ren smiled. "I didn't know how to say it either," he admitted. "But I feel the same Nora. I always have."

Nora smiled back as she kissed Ren once more, this time just a quick peck. "You know that Jaune and Pyrrha are gonna have a field day when we tell them about this."

Ren chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. This may actually be bigger news than us beating BRNZ."

"Well, I wouldn't go _that_ far," Nora grinned. "After all I channelled freaking lightning back there."

Ren laughed and ruffled her hair. "You did indeed my little thunder cloud."

Nora giggled and flopped her head back down on Ren's shoulder. "Can we stay here for a little longer before we go back to the arena?"

"Yep," Ren agreed, kissing the top of her head and linking his fingers with hers.

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 **AN: Hope you enjoyed this everyone, especially you Amiee! Again, happy birthday!**


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